A study on sensing system of lower limb condition with piezoelectric gyroscopes: Measurements of joint angles and gait phases

Abstract

Functional electrical stimulation (FES) training of paralyzed muscles is effective for incomplete spinal cord injured patients in the early period of the rehabilitation process. Information of lower limb joint angles and gait phases are very important to assist walking and to restore motor function with FES. It is considered that a small and inexpensive gyroscope is useful to construct a practical sensor system in clinical. In this paper, we examined the simultaneous measurement method of the lower limb joint angles and the gait phases by using the gyroscopes. From the result of the walking analysis with normal subjects, it was indicated that the sensor system could measure the joint angles with sufficient accuracy and could detect practicably the swing phase and the stance phase without mistake. Therefore, the sensing system of lower limb condition with appropriate accuracy that could be used in clinical would be constructed compactly at inexpensive by using the gyroscopes.